


You Don't Mind Waiting

by punkscully



Category: The West Wing
Genre: 2010 Donna is a congresswoman, F/M, Josh is bi and these are the facts, Josh/Sam was a thing that happened at a point in time and it's discussed here but that's it, Santos Administration, also lots of trauma related things, some vague allusions to how hard the government blew re: the AIDS crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 16:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkscully/pseuds/punkscully
Summary: After Matt Santos is elected, Josh and Donna rebuild. Post-Hawaii.





	You Don't Mind Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this over a year ago after I finished bingeing TWW, left it unfinished because I never write fic, rediscovered it today and thought it was okay enough to stand on its own so... here it is. TW for some canon trauma related things.

**March 2010**

“Second drawer?” Donna repeats. The red light on her desk phone flashes. “Bonnie!” she yells, “Put the Congressman on hold, please. Convincing him to vote for the Violence Against Women Act’s renewal was like pulling teeth. He can wait five minutes.” Donna tucks her hair behind her ear and directs her attention to the woman hovering just inside her doorway. “Can you believe a Democrat in 2010 was opposed to VAWA because of its same-sex protection provisions? I’m sorry. The drawer?”

“Second down on the left,” Cathy says. “It keeps sticking. I don’t mean to bother you, but—”

“No, no,” Donna waves her off. “It’s okay. Don’t open it so fast. There’s a groove in the—what do you call it?—the length of metal that clicks the drawer into the desk. It gets caught if you pull it out too quick.”

Cathy smiles. “Thanks, Donna. I almost called maintenance, but Sam needs those files before his noon meeting and I figured since—”

“Since it’s my old desk, yeah.”

Cathy shifts her weight, momentarily startled by the blunt change in energy. “Right. Anyway, thanks, Donna.”

“No problem.” The light on her phone continues to flash and Donna sighs. She steps outside to her assistant’s desk. “Bonnie, can you tell the congressman I’ll take his call now?”

“Of course.”

Donna closes the door behind her and chastises herself. She wonders when in the fourteen months since inauguration she adopted shouting over using the intercom. Picking up the phone, she drops into her leather chair, crosses her legs, and swivels around to face the wall behind her. “Congressman,” she says. “How are you?” Her eyes level at the hand-me-down Bartlet For America employee pass pressed flat inside its sleek frame.

 

**Late December 2008**

Helen Santos, despite her reluctance and disinterest in the grandiosity of national politics, is shaping up to be a fine First Lady and infinitely (Donna thinks privately) more measured than Dr. Bartlet had been. She, at least, doesn’t expect a scandal of “secretly medicating your MS diagnosed husband, the Commander In Chief” proportions to drop any time soon and for that Donna rests relatively easy.

In the immediate days following her and Josh’s Hawaii-induced haze, the vetting process of several hundred employees re-grounds them. Bonnie and Ginger, who Donna politely pilfers from the Communications office, are among a grand total of three employees working uniquely for the First Lady. The three of them soon hire a robust staff of mostly women and Donna feels a sense of camaraderie and competence that ushers her into a bathroom stall for a short, euphoric weep.

Josh from his opposite wing hires a qualified few from the campaign and eventually relinquishes Otto to Lou after a grueling debate during which accusations of “unhinged” and “sex scandal” fly between the two. Now permanently convinced of Otto’s fortitude, Josh explains—or rather hopes—that Otto had seen the worst of him. If he could withstand him then, he can cope with a few burned burger orders. It is finally Donna who convinces Josh to let him go to Lou.

“So they had a one night stand on the campaign trail,” she says. They’re eating Chinese take-out over the dinner table. Josh lights a candle between them. Donna smirks.

“What? It’s romantic, isn’t it?” he says, affronted.

“I think romance went out the window when you flung lo mein into my hair.”

“On accident!”

“You gesticulate too wildly.”

“I _what_?”

“You know. Anyway, if we barred everyone who had a fling with each other during the campaign from working together we’d have to build a whole other wing. He’s a writer. He should be with Communications. Besides, I don’t think Lou is interested.”

“She thinks he’s cute. If they ever—”

“He’s young and passionate about the work, Josh! Of course he’s cute. You think so too.”

Josh blinks rapidly, like when he stared down the electoral map, mentally swapping votes from state to state or when, years ago, Donna had asked him to zip a gown with its back open down to her hips. “Fine,” he concedes.

“Did you and Sam ever sleep together again? After you were hired for staff, I mean.” She says this nonchalantly. They don’t talk about Sam often, not like this, or Josh’s attraction to men for that matter. It’s an undisclosed topic to the entire current staff and all of the former staff except Sam, Donna, and CJ who ran into him chatting up a man at a bar one night in Iowa. Josh remembers the Reagans, he remembers Congressman Matt Skinner and the virulent rhetoric surrounding his bill, he remembers Donna’s quiet acceptance, he remembers the fear and the self-loathing and after that he remembers the self-absolution. He remembers a dozen dying friends and the government, just there, and it is too much to be anything other than another political battlefield.            

“No.”

“Well, then.”

“I did sleep with you though.”

Donna grins. “Yes, you did.”

Josh sighs, his shoulders slumping. “You’re right. Otto’ll want to work for Lou anyway. He probably wants to stay as far away from me as possible, actually.”

“You should apologize for that, you know.”

“I—” Josh begins to protest. “I… yeah, okay.”

 

**10 January 2009**

By the beginning of January more than half the staff of the first four years of the Santos administration is hired. Santos, ever involved, is briefed on his new employees’ reputations, histories, accolades, faults. In the most recent series of inexhaustible briefs, Josh sits across from Santos.

“What was his name again, Josh?”

“Miller, sir. Last one for today.”

“Military background?”

“Yes, sir. He’s just returning from Kazakhstan.”

“Already?”

“Yeah. He was one of the first to get a lay of the land. He’ll be corresponding with the men and women abroad in the coming months.”

“Mentally up for the challenge then?”

“Sir?”

“I mean to say, he has his wits about him? He wasn’t engaged in combat, so there’s no need for psychological background check? No—ah—resulting ramifications from war.”

Josh’s stomach drops. “Sir… This is a relatively low level position. He’ll be reporting directly to Vinick, not us.”

“I just like to cover all bases, Josh.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll—uh—look into it.” Josh runs a hand through his hair and stands up.

“Josh?”

“That’s all for tonight, sir.”

“Goodnight, then, Josh.” Josh lingers at the door to his adjacent office. “Josh?”

“I was just thinking, sir. You never vetted me. Or Donna for that matter. Or Lou, or really anyone from the campaign trail.”

Santos raises his eyebrows and leans one hand heavily against his desk. “Do you need to be vetted?”

Josh fingers the files in his hands and blanches almost imperceptibly. “No. Just a thought, sir,” he says. “Goodnight.” He strides into his office and shuts the door, exhaling. He knocks his head back against the wood. There’s a raised spot on his lower chest that aches resolutely.

 

Most nights Donna is home before he is. Her key to Josh’s apartment, saddled on its chain between her car and office keys, is the same copy he tossed to her one day in the West Wing six years ago. “You know,” he had shrugged. “Whatever.” They don’t talk about whether or not it’s their apartment. They don’t talk about a lot of things and Donna isn’t sure they ever will. She’s not sure she wants to or can. She’s not sure they need to.

Donna’s things are all in the apartment now, her shoes and books on strange topics; her toothbrush clinks against Josh’s in their cup on the bathroom counter, twice she’s lost her mascara and found it in the toothpaste drawer. That night she’s home by 9 o’clock, which seems like a victory until she remembers Matt Santos is still only President-Elect and inauguration is ten days away. She’s pulling on sweatpants when the door clicks open and she hears the familiar hulking sound of bags hitting the ground at the threshold.

“I just ordered a pizza,” she calls from the bedroom. “I hope that’s alri—” She comes around the corner and sees him scrubbing at his eyes, looking almost as tired as before Hawaii. “What’s wrong? Josh?”

His hand hovers over the scar on his chest. “I just…”

“Josh.” She hurries to him and pulls his coat from his shoulders. “Come on,” she says, leading him towards the couch. He sits heavily then leans forward with his elbows hard on his knees and runs his hands down his face. Donna watches apprehensively, waiting patiently. Her knee bumps against his.

“I told the President-Elect he should vet me,” he says and smiles sheepishly at her.

“Why?” She’s quiet, searching.

Josh shrugs. “We were going over some of the new appointees and he mentioned something about the—what was it—‘psychological ramifications’ of war. Wanted to make sure we didn’t have another suicidal pilot on our hands, so to speak, I think.”

“And that…”

“Yeah,” he says, grinning like it’s stupid, like it’s nothing, like maybe Donna might laugh with him if he delivers it like a joke. “Put me on edge a little.” When Donna doesn’t laugh, Josh looks down at the floor and whispers, “He’s not Leo, Donna.”

Donna runs her hand down his face, pulling him towards her. “No,” she says. “But he’s a good man, Josh. You know that. Do you want to tell him?”

“About the…”

“PTSD, yeah.”

Josh opens and closes his mouth before leaning back against Donna. His head falls sideways onto her shoulder. “I don’t know,” he says. “I think… I think I might have to.”

“Everyone knows about Rosslyn already. It wouldn’t come as a huge surprise.”

“What if—”

“He trusts you and he knows you’re the best man for the job,” she says firmly. “That won’t change.”

The streetlamps outside reflect candescently into the apartment and the two of them watch the light change as snowflakes cast shadows over the bulbs as they pass. Donna’s toes curl onto the edge of the coffee table in front of them and Josh sits up to shrug off his suit jacket and tie.

“I told Helen I go to therapy sometimes,” she says quietly.

“What?” Josh is attempting, and failing, to toss both his jacket and tie in a clump together into the bedroom.

“We sat down for tea in the Residence about a week ago, maybe more. I told her. She knew about Gaza, of course. I mean, I’m not sure if she knew _I_ was there, but she knew what happened.”

“Donna…” Josh sits back down beside her and pulls both his legs up onto the couch, crossing them like a child, facing her. His hair is standing more than usual from pulling the tie over his head and his top buttons are undone. Donna’s toes grip harder on the table. Josh notices their purple paint chipped just slightly. “I didn’t know you still go.”

She’s blinking up at the ceiling, but smiles. “I know.”

“Donna,” he says gently. It sounds like a hospital in Germany, like flowers discarded on the floor, like infinite stillness in a man who never stops moving.

She regains composure and tells the ceiling, like a rundown of the day’s schedule, “I don’t go very often. Maybe once a month. It’s the same woman from when I got back. I don’t need to go much, but it helps. I wanted to tell Helen before everything.”

“Did you…”

“I didn’t say anything about you. I wouldn’t have anyway, but I didn’t know if…”

“Yeah,” he says. He feels momentarily lost, unable to navigate this gulf that’s existed since Gaza. Hawaii, among other pursuits, returned their easy rapport, the meaningless light banter that marked their relationship. The light changes in the apartment again and he hears a truck passing down the road, blocking light from the other side of the street. It flickers and he thinks of Donna’s keys: the key to her room across from him in Iowa, the key she passed to him when they tied with Vinick, the key she has on her chain now, somewhere deep in her purse, the same one she’s had for six years, and how she stopped knocking after two and began again after five.

“Donna,” he starts slowly. “I don’t… I wasn’t—I mean.” He sighs and Donna focuses on his agitation.

“Josh?”

“I’m, uh. I don’t want to mess this up.”

“It’s okay, go ahead.”

“No, I mean. I don’t want to mess _this_ up.” He gestures between them. She tilts her head and again he thinks of the keys, of doors almost knocked on, of waiting, of stalling.

“What do you—”

“I mean I’ve been fucking around for years. I didn’t do anything because you were my assistant and then I didn’t do anything after Gaza, like at _all_. I kept you at your desk because I wanted everything to back to how it was and I wanted to keep you close by and I shouldn’t’ve because you clearly weren’t happy and it was selfish and I _stall_ so much that I end up ruining things and—”

“Josh—”

“I should’ve _known_ you’re still going to therapy. I should know that, Donna. I should’ve, I don’t know, made sure you were okay. I should’ve asked. You spent _weeks_ with me after I got shot and then everything around that December and afterwards. You get hurt in Gaza and then we don’t talk for months because I’m an asshole—”

“ _Josh_ ,” she says sternly. She turns and mirrors his position on the couch and puts her hands on his shoulders. He looks almost hysterical. “Yes. You kept me at a desk job you knew I was too good for. You took me for granted. But it is not, it is _not_ your fault you didn’t know I’m still going to therapy. I pushed people away after Gaza, I know that. Maybe I did too much. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe I resented you but I needed to go and I’m glad I did. And I’m glad I’m here now too. You have to stop blaming yourself. I’m a big girl.” She smiles and he laughs tiredly.

The doorbell rings and Josh jerks. “Pizza man,” says Donna. “Give me fifteen bucks.”

“Extra cheese?”

“Extra cheese.”

She pays the man at the door and reaches for two beers in the refrigerator. Josh is in his undershirt now, rubbing at his eyes with his head against the couch, but looking calm.

“Can I ask you something?” he says as she opens the beer bottles with a pop.

“Shoot,” she says.

“Do you get panic attacks?”

She pauses for a moment and then says, “No, but I’m sad sometimes.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Hey,” he starts soberly. His eyes are cast hard on the blank television set in front of them.

“What?” Donna looks him up and down, concerned.

“Do you still have _Princess Bride_ on VHS?”

**Author's Note:**

> boy I'd sure like some mental health talk in the later seasons !


End file.
